This book is written to help people be better readers. The
title, Reading Between the Lines, perhaps suggests a note of suspicion,
that we need to scrutinize everything we read for sinister hidden meanings. My
purpose is to promote critical reading, the habit of reading with discernment
and an awareness of larger contexts and deeper implications. I will be
attacking books that I consider morally, theologically, or aesthetically bad. I
come, though, to praise books, not to bury them. The capacity to read is a
precious gift of God, and this book is designed to encourage people to use this
gift to its fullest.

Nor does reading between the lines imply an
over-emphasis upon mere interpretation of literature. Although I hope to show
readers how to read closely and understand what they read, I resist treating a
poem or a novel like a puzzle that has to be figured out. Once the meaning is
deciphered, under this view, we can put aside the book, perhaps wondering why
its author did not just come out and tell us the idea in the first place. I
contend that the imaginative activity that takes place as the eyes scan the
page provides both the pleasure and the intellectual value of reading.
Interpretation is important, but appreciation and enjoyment must come
first.

Reading between the lines is a figure of speech. Attending to
the empty spaces between the lines of print refers to what is left unsaid, to
the values and assumptions that are an important dimension of what we read. We
might also think of lines of demarcation, or even of battle lines. This book
takes the reader between the lines of Christian and non-Christian literature,
fantasy and realism, comedy and tragedy. Its method is to draw
linesdistinguishing between words and images, the Greek and the Hebraic,
the Modern and the Postmodernand to show how Christianity intersects with
them all.

The habit of reading is absolutely critical today,
particularly for Christians. As television turns our society into an
increasingly image-dominated culture, Christians must continue to be people of
the Word. When we read, we cultivate a sustained attention span, an active
imagination, a capacity for logical analysis and critical thinking, and a rich
inner life. Each of these qualities, which have proven themselves essential to
a free people, is under assault in our TV-dominated culture. Christians, to
maintain their Word-centered perspective in an image-driven world, must become
readers.

This is often difficult. We live in a society which sponsors
both a mass culture that minimizes reading and an elite intellectual culture
which is highly literate but hostile to Christianity. This book is designed to
help Christians recover the art of reading and to help them navigate their way
through both the classics and the bestseller lists.

Some Christians do
not realize that they are heirs to a great literary tradition. From the
beginnings of the church to the present day, Christian writers have explored
their faith in books, and in doing so have nourished their fellow believers.
Some of the best writers who have ever lived have been Christians, working
explicitly out of the Christian worldview. To their loss, many contemporary
Christians are unaware of Christian writersboth those from past
generations and those writing today. This book will introduce readers to these
authors who can offer hours and years of pleasure and enrichment.

Although the subject of the book is literature, a host of other subjects will
also be addressed. This is because literature, by its very nature, involves its
readers in a wide range of issues, provoking thought in many directions. Our
discussions of style and literary history will lead to the abortion
controversy. Our discussions of comedy and tragedy will lead into the theology
of Heaven and Hell. Our discussions of fairy tales will lead to child
psychology. Reading can break us out of the tunnel vision of a narrow specialty
and lead us into many intriguing and important avenues of thought, a process
this book will try to model as well as to explain.

As a guide to
literature, this book may be read in different ways. I hope that it can
bear a sustained reading from beginning to end. It can also be read in parts.
Each section and each chapter is somewhat self-contained. Someone curious about
how comedy works or what post-modernism involves can turn to those chapters.
With its index to authors, movements, and issues, the book can function as a
reference work.

Several kinds of readers should find something of
value in this book. Those with little background in literature, including
students of various levels, will learn about the techniques of literature and
how to read with greater understanding and appreciation. Those with more
experience in reading already know such things, but they may find other topics
of interest: the contrast between the classical and the Hebraic traditions; the
tragic sense of life as opposed to the comic sense of life; my analysis of the
role of existentialism and fascism in Modernist and Postmodernist culture. I
also address those who wish to take their place in the Christian literary
tradition as poets or novelists. I try to show them how Christian authors in
every age have used the writing styles common in their day to express the
Christian faith.

This book does not deal with all of the theoretical
issues involved in the relationship between Christianity and literature. Other
books do that well, and I highly recommend them. I hope readers will consult
the footnotes as well as the text and that some will go on to read the works of
scholarship I cite. I have been free with my quotations in order to give
readers a taste of what there is to read. My own approach is that of a literary
historian, eclectic critic, and voracious reader for whom Christianity and
literature have proven mutually illuminating.

The first chapter
explores why reading has always been so important to Christianity. Words and
images promote two totally different mind-sets. Christians must be people of
the Word, although the old temptation to succumb to graven images
is present in a new form in the television age. The second chapter describes
the good and the bad pleasures that reading can promote. It discusses such
topics as the different kinds of bad language and the need to
cultivate the art of criticism and to acquire a taste for excellence.

The next section contains chapters on each of the major genres of literature:
nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Each chapter explains the inner workings of
the form and focuses on Christian writers who excel in each genre.

The
next section examines the diverse modes of literary expression: tragedy,
comedy, realism, and fantasy. Whether a work of literature makes the reader cry
or laugh, whether it imitates the world or creates a new oneeach mode of
literature can open the mind and the imagination in significant ways.

The next section surveys literary history. Chapters on Medieval and Reformation
literature, Enlightenment and Romantic literature, and Modern and Postmodern
literature show how and why literature has changed, and how Christian writers
have managed to be relevant in every age.

The last chapter explores
the relationship between authors, publishers, and readers. It examines the
workings of the literary establishment and the Christian alternatives. It shows
how Christian readers, by patronizing worthy writers, can have a major impact
on the literary marketplace and thus on the culture as a whole.

The
Ethiopian eunuch was reading a good book, but that was not enough. Philip asked
him, Do you understand what you are reading?

He replied,
How can I unless someone explains it to me? (Acts
8:30, 31).

Philip should perhaps be the patron saint of literary
critics. The critic simply hopes to do the work of Philip, offering
explanations and interpretations as he and the reader bounce along in the
chariot. The center of attention should be the bookultimately, the
Bookthrough which the Living Word, the author and finisher of our
faith, reveals Himself (Hebrews 12:2 KJV).

This particular book, by the same token, is meant to call attention to other
books, and ultimately to the depths of truth and meaning expressed in the
written words of Scripture. My central purpose will be served if through this
book a reader discovers the poetry of George Herbert or the childrens
stories of Walter Wangerin, gains insight into Scripture by noticing its
parallelism or nonvisual imagery, or turns off the TV one night to settle down
with a good book.

CHAPTER ONE The Word and the Image: The Importance
of Reading

Will reading become obsolete?
Some people think that with the explosion of video technology, the age of the
book is almost over. Television monitors, fed by cable networks and video
recorders, dominate our culture today.Our fads and fashions, politics and
morals, entertainment and leisure time are all shaped and controlled by
whatever is transmitted on the diode screen. As electronic communication
develops at an astonishing rate, who is to saythat such arcane skills as
reading and writing can or even need to survive?

One thing, however,
is certain: Reading can never die out among Christians. This is because the
whole Christian revelation centers around a Book. God chose to reveal Himself
to us in the most personal way through His Wordthe Bible. The word Bible
is simply the Greek word for "the Book." Indeed the Bible is the primal Book,
the most ancient of all literary texts and the source of all literacy. Reading
the Bible tends to lead to reading other books, and thus to some important
habits of mind.

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

The centrality of the
Bible means that the very act of reading can have spiritual significance.
Whereas other religions may stress visions, experiences, or even the silence of
meditation as the way to achieve contact with the divine, Christianity insists
on the role of language.1

Language is the basis for
all communication and so lies at the heart of any personal relationship.2
We can never know anyone intimately by simply being in that persons
presence. We need to have a conversation in order to share our thoughts and our
personalities. By the same token, we need a conversation with Godtwo-way
communication through languagein order to know Him on a personal basis.
Just as human beings address God by means of language through prayer, God
addresses human beings by means of language in the pages of Scripture. Prayer
and Bible reading are central to a personal relationship with God. Christians
have to be, in some sense, readers.

Creation itself was accomplished
by Gods Word (Hebrews 11:3), and Jesus Christ Himself
is none other than the living Word of God (John 1:1). The
Word of the gospel, the good news that Jesus died for sinners and offers them
eternal life, is a message in human language which calls people to salvation.
"Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the
word of Christ" - Romans 10:17.3 Gods Word is
written down in the pages of the Bible. Human beings, inspired by the Holy
Spirit, have recorded what God has revealed about Himself and His acts in
history. In the Bible, God reveals His relationship to us, setting forth the
law by which we should live and the gospel of forgiveness through Christ. As we
read the Bible, God addresses us in the most intimate way, as one Person
speaking to another.

When we read the Bible, we are not simply
learning doctrines or studying historyalthough we are doing those things.
"The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword,
it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges
the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" - Hebrews 4:12. As we read the
Bible, all of the senses of "The Word of God" come togetherGods
creative power, His judgment, Jesus Christ, and proclamation of the
gospeland are imprinted in our minds and souls. In the Word, the Holy
Spirit is at work.

Certainly the Word of the gospel can be proclaimed
orally and not in writing alone. In church we hear the Word of God preached,
and even in casual witnessing, the Word of God is being shared. In cultures
that lack Bibles or people who know how to read them, the church has managed to
survive through the oral proclamation of the Word, although often with many
errors and difficulties. Still, the priority that God places on language and
the idea that Gods Word is personally accessible to us in a book has
meant that Christians have always valued reading and writing.

Even
when books were rare and expensive, having to be copied out by hand, so that
common people remained uneducated, at least the priests had to know how to
read. The Reformation was providentially accompanied by the invention of the
printing press, enabling books to be cheaply mass-produced. This meant that the
Bible could be put into the hands of every Christian. Every Christian,
therefore, needed to learn how to read. Universal literacy, taken for granted
today, was a direct result of the Reformations reemphasis upon the
centrality of Bible reading, not only for theologians but for the spiritual
life of every Christian.

Missionaries to nonliterate cultures often
begin by mastering the peoples language and giving them a system of
writing. They then translate the Bible and teach the people how to read it in
their own language. The Word of God begins to transform its readers. Once
people know how to read the Bible, of course, they can read anything. Tribes go
on to discover modern health care and the need for social change, just as the
Reformation Christians, empowered by Bible reading, went on to develop
scientific technology, economic growth, and democratic institutions.

When ideas and experiences can be written down, they are, in effect, stored
permanently. People are no longer bound by their own limited insights and
experiences, but they can draw on those of other people as well. Instead of
continually starting over again, people can build upon what others have
discovered and have written down. Technological, economic, and social progress
become possible. The impact of writing can be seen plainly by comparing
nonliterate cultures, many of which still exist on the Stone Age level, with
those that have had the gift of writing. Nonliterate peoples tend to exist in
static, unchanging societies, whereas literate societies tend toward rapid
change and technological growth.

Christians, along with Jews and
Moslems, are considered "people of the Book." Such reverence for reading and
writing has profoundly shaped even our secular society. Certainly, non-Biblical
cultures have made great use of writing, but this was almost always reserved
for the elite. The religious idea that everyone should learn how to read in
order to study the Bible (a view implicit in the Hebrew bar mitzvah and carried
out in the Reformation school systems) would have radical consequences in the
West. Universal education has led to the breaking of class systems, the ability
of individual citizens to exercise political power, and a great pooling of
minds that would result in the technological achievements of the last four
hundred years. It is no exaggeration to say that reading has shaped our
civilization more than almost any other factor and that a major impetus to
reading has been the Bible.

ELECTRONICALLY GRAVEN IMAGES

Reading has been essential to our civilization, yet today its centrality is
under attack by the new electronic media. If reading has had vast social and
intellectual repercussions, we should wonder about the repercussions of the new
media. Can democratic institutions survive without a literatethat is, a
readingpopulace, or will the new modes of thinking lend themselves to new
forms of totalitarianism? Can educational and intellectual progress continue if
visual imagery supplants reading, or will the new information technologies,
ironically, subvert the scientific thinking that created them, resulting in
anti-intellectualism and mass ignorance?

Such issues are critical for
the culture as a whole, but they are especially urgent for the church. Is it
possible for Biblical faith to ?flourish in a society that no longer values
reading, or will the newly dominant images lead to new manifestations of the
most primitive paganism? Ever since the Old Testament, graven images have
tempted Gods people to abandon the true God and His Word. Today the
images are graven by electrons on cathode ray tubes.

Neil Postman is a
media scholar and one of the most astute social critics of our time. His
writings focus, with great sophistication, on how different forms of
communication shape peoples thinking and culture. Postman says that he
first discovered the connection between media and culture in the Bible: "In
studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms
of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking
command of a culture." He found this concept in the Ten Commandments: "You
shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth" - Exodus 20:4 (RSV).

I wondered then, as so many others
have, as to why the God of these people would have included instructions on how
they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange
injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a
connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture.
We may hazard a guess that a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract,
universal deity would be rendered un?t to do so by the habit of drawing
pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete,
iconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through
the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract
thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could
enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of converting
their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit by reflecting
on this Mosaic injunction.4

According to Postman,
"word-centered" people think in a completely different mode from
"image-centered" people. His distinction is especially important for
Christians, for whom the "Mosaic injunction" is eternally valid.

In an
important book on education, Postman explores the differences between the
mental processes involved in reading and those involved in television watching.
Reading demands sustained concentration, whereas television promotes a very
short attention span. Reading involves (and teaches) logical reasoning, whereas
television involves (and teaches) purely emotional responses. Reading promotes
continuity, the gradual accumulation of knowledge, and sustained exploration of
ideas. Television, on the other hand, fosters fragmentation,
anti-intellectualism, and immediate gratification.5

Postman does not criticize the content of televisionthe typical worries
about "sex and violence" or the need for quality programming. Rather, the
problem is in the properties of the form itself. Language is cognitive,
appealing to the mind; images are affective, appealing to the emotions.

This difference between symbols that demand conceptualization and
reflection and symbols that evoke feeling has many implications, one of the
most important being that the content of the TV curriculum is irrefutable. You
can dislike it, but you cannot disagree with it. There is no way to show that
the feelings evoked by the imagery of a McDonalds commercial are false,
or indeed, true. Such words as true and false come out of a different universe
of symbolism altogether. Propositions are true or false. Pictures are not.6

Postman goes on to connect the newly emerging
dominance of electronic images over words to habits of mind that are having
monumental social consequences: to the undermining of authority, the loss of a
sense of history, hostility to science, pleasure-centeredness, and the
emergence of new values based on instant gratification and the need to be
continually entertained. The new media direct us "to search for time-compressed
experience, short-term relationships, present-oriented accomplishment, simple
and immediate solutions. Thus, the teaching of the media curriculum must lead
inevitably to a disbelief in long-term planning, in deferred gratification, in
the relevance of tradition, and in the need for confronting complexity."7 The social acceptance of sexual immorality, the soaring divorce
rates, and the pathology of drug abuse may well be related to this pursuit of
instant pleasure at all costs.

And yet, human beingsmade as we
are for higher purposes can scarcely live this way. The untrammeled
emotionalism, the isolation, and the fragmentation of mind encouraged by the
new information environment lead to mental illness, suicide, and emotional
collapse. "Articulate language," on the other hand, according to Postman, "is
our chief weapon against mental disturbance."8 If the trends
he sees continue to develop, Postman foresees a future in which we have "people
who are in touch with their feelings, who are spontaneous and
musical, and who live in an existential world of immediate experience but who,
at the same time, cannot think in the way we customarily use that
word. In other words, people whose state of mind is somewhat analogous to that
of a modern-day baboon."9

The impact of the TV
mentality on politics is already clearly evident. Rational, sustained debate of
issues has been replaced by "sound-bites"brief "media events" that can
play on the evening news. Political campaigns are managed by "image
consultants," and candidates are chosen for their charisma and the way they
appear on TV rather than for their ideas and policies.10
American democracy was the creation of a word-centered culture and a literate
populace.11 Whether the traditions of freedom and democracy
can be sustained without that basis is questionable. An easily manipulated
population that cares mostly for its own amusement may be more ready for
tyranny (which can keep the masses happy with "bread and circuses") than for
the arduous responsibilities of self-government.

The impact of the new
mentality upon religion is even more significant. The appeal of the New Age
movement with its almost comical irrationalism is evidence that categories such
as true or false, revelation or superstition, have become irrelevant for many
people.12 The sophisticated and affluent pay large sums of
money to hear the wisdom of ancient Egyptian warriors or extra-terrestrial
aliens purportedly taking over the bodies of the "channelers." Well-educated
socialites plan their lives by horoscopes. Trendy movie stars solve their
problems by means of magical crystals. How can anyone believe such things? If
people stop thinking about religion in propositional terms (part of the
heritage of "the Word"), abandoning truth or falsehood as religious categories,
then belief hardly enters into it. Even among Christians today, religious
discussions often focus upon "what I like" rather than "what is true." Those
whose main concern is self-gratification search in exactly the same way for
religious gratification.

Of course, Christians know that there is
nothing "new" in the New Age movement, which the Bible terms demon possession,
divination, and idolatry. The New Age movement is simply the paganism of the
Old Age. Such primitive and oppressive superstitions squelched human progress
for millennia. Ironically, our advanced technology is resulting in a new
primitivism, in which the gains of thousands of years of civilization are
glibly rejected by a post-literate culture that closely resembles pre-literate
ones. Even infanticide, a commonplace practice of pagan societies, has become
socially acceptable in the form of abortion on demand. As Scripture warns,
graven images can lead to paganism of the most horrific kind.

And yet,
evangelicals too have been seduced by the electrical graven images of
television and the kind of spirituality that it encourages. In his study of
contemporary "TV ministries," Postman is remarkably charitable towards
television evangelists, but he shows how the medium itself inevitably distorts
the Christian message:

On television, religion, like everything
else, is presented, quite simply and without apology, as an entertainment.
Everything that makes religion an historic, profound, and sacred human activity
is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theology,
and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence. On these shows, the
preacher is tops. God comes out as second banana.13

Postman quotes a religious broadcaster who
admits that in order to attract an audience, TV ministries must offer people
something they want.

You will note, I am sure, that this is an unusual
religious credo. There is no great religious leaderfrom the Buddha to
Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to Lutherwho offered people what they want.
Only what they need. But television is not well suited to offering people what
they need. It is "user friendly." It is too easy to turn off. It is at its most
alluring when it speaks the language of dynamic visual imagery. It does not
accommodate complex language or stringent demands. As a consequence, what is
preached on television is not anything like the Sermon on the Mount. Religious
programs are filled with good cheer. They celebrate affluence. Their featured
players become celebrities. I believe I am not mistaken in saying that
Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy
and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.14

Since Postman wrote these words, we have seen the collapse of various
television ministries. The moral and spiritual failures of the TV preachers may
well be a symptom of the shallowness of the TV theology, which lured them away
from the spirituality of the Word.

The problem, however, is not only
for TV ministries. As evangelicals, we too are tempted to conform to the world
rather than to the Word, just as the children of Israel were tempted by their
neighbors graven images and the thought-forms these embodied. We too
often stress feeling rather than truth. We tend to seek emotional religious
experiences rather than the cross of Jesus Christ. Because we expect worldly
"blessings," we do not know how to endure suffering. We want to "name it and
claim it"instantlyrather than submit ourselves without reservation
to the will of God. We are impatient with theology, and we dismiss history,
thus disdaining the faith of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us
and neglecting what they could teach us. We want entertaining worship
serviceson the order of a good TV showrather than worship that
focuses on the holiness of God and His Word. We want God to speak to us in
visions and inner voices rather than in the pages of His Word. We believe in
the Bible, but we do not read it very much.

Like the ancient
Israelites, we live in "the land of graven images," amidst people who are "mad
upon their idols" (Jeremiah 50:38).15 Also
like them, we subtly drift into the ways of "the people of the land" unless we
are rescued by the Word of God.

THE IMPORTANCE OF READING

Postman may well be exaggerating the dangers of television and its impact on
our lives. He himself does not advocate the elimination of television, as if
that were possible or desirable. Instead, he argues that its worst effects can
be countered by a reemphasis upon language in our schools and culture,
providing a stabilizing balance to the role of the media.16

The electronic media still employ language. The
gospel can be effectually proclaimed in a television or radio broadcast. For
that reason, Christians can and should become involved with the new electronic
media. The radio is intrinsically an oral medium, and so is quite appropriate
for the oral proclamation of the Word. Straightforward Biblical exposition and
preaching can be effectually broadcast on television, although presentations
that feature people speaking instead of images are often derided as "talking
heads" by media experts. Billy Graham does not stage "media-events"; rather, he
broadcasts actual revival services in front of real people in real cities.
Christian journalists should by all means produce Christian news and
documentary programs. Religious drama, a time-honored contribution of Christian
literature, especially deserves expression on television and ?lm.

The
Word of God proclaimed orally has always been central in evangelism and in the
life of the church, and the electronic media can transmit that Word to the ears
of millions of listeners. Nor are all "images" necessarily in opposition to
Gods Word. I have elsewhere written about what the Bible says about the
arts, and I have found that sheer iconoclasmthe rejection of all artistic
images as idolatrousis not Biblical.17

However, Gods people have always had to be very cautious lest, without
thinking, they slip into the ways of their pagan neighbors. The forms can
distort the messagean evangelist broadcasting over the airwaves is not
exactly the same as a pastor addressing his congregation or a Christian
personally witnessing to a friend. The intimacy, the person-to-person presence
is lost in an electronic broadcast, and the temptation may be to manipulate the
unseen audience or to entertain them by sub-Biblical teachings. This need not
happen, but religious broadcasters will have to struggle against the demands of
the electronic media. Christians must become conscious of how the
image-centered culture is pulling them in non-Christian directions. The
priority of language for Christians must be absolute. As the rest of society
abandons language-centeredness for image-centeredness, we can expect to feel
the pressures and temptations to conform, but we must resist.

One way
to do this is simply to read. A growing problem is illiteracymany people
do not know how to read. A more severe problem, though, is "aliteracy"a
vast number of people know how to read but never do it. If we cultivate
readingif we read habitually and for pleasure, reading the Bible,
newspapers, the great works of the past and the present, the wide-ranging
"promiscuous reading" advocated by the Christian poet Milton18we will reinforce the patterns of the mind that support
Christian faith and lead to a healthy and free society.

Even if the
masses sink into illiteracy and drug themselves by "amusement," the influential
and the powerful will still be readers, as they are today. In the ancient pagan
world, reading was a zealously guarded secret for the priests and the ruling
elite, who, because they had access to knowledge, had access to power. Postman
explores the paradox of a society increasingly dependent upon its scientists
but undermining the literate thought-forms science demands. "It is improbable
that scientists will disappear," he concludes, "but we shall quite likely have
fewer of them, and they are likely to form, even in the short run, an elite
class who, like priests of the pictographic age, will be believed to possess
mystical powers."19

Thinking, planning, imagining,
creatingprocesses encouraged by readingremain essential to society.
Even television shows must have writers. Without people oriented toward
language, very little would be accomplished. The point is, the wielders of
influence will always be those who read and write, who still work within the
framework of language. If Christians remain true to their heritage, if they
train themselves to be people of the Word and pursue the disciplines of reading
and writing, their influence will be felt once again as it was in the formative
moments of our civilization.

NOTES

1. For the centrality of language to Christianity and its
implications, see Jacques Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word, trans. Joyce Main
Hanks (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985).

2. See
Francis A. Schaeffers discussion of the centrality of language to
personality and relationships in He Is There and He Is Not Silent, in The
Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1982),
1:323, 344.

3. Except where otherwise indicated,
quotations from the Bible are taken from the New International Version (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1973). See chapter 5, n5.

4.
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show
Business (New York: Viking, 1985), p. 9.

5. Neil
Postman, Teaching as a Conserving Activity (New York: Delacorte Press, 1979),
pp. 47-70. Postman was also the author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity,
which promoted radical leftist educational theories. In this later book,
Postman recants much of what he had earlier advocated. Postmans first
book is still on the reading lists of many teacher education programs while his
new defense of conservatism in education is strangely missing.

6. Ibid., p. 57.

7. Ibid., p. 77.

8. Ibid., p. 79.

9. Ibid., p.
72.

10. See Postmans chapter "Reach Out and
Elect Someone" in Amusing Ourselves to Death, pp. 125-141.

15. For a
sophisticated exploration of idolatry as it relates to the contemporary
domination of images, see Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word, especially his
chapters "Idols and the Word," pp. 48-111, and "The Religious Conflict Between
Image and Word," pp. 183-203.

16. Postman, Teaching
as a Conserving Activity, pp. 15-25, 129ff. Postman is also somewhat hopeful
about computers which require "languages" and modes of thinking analogous to
human language. On the other hand, the cutting-edge of computer research is
"computer visualization." The advances in computer animation have caused some
experts to predict the further eclipse of language as a means of thinking.
Computers will operate "in a vocabulary of images, not words. In effect, the
sort of literacy that computers will demand will be visual. Computers are now
moving us into a post-visual, post-literate culture where the interactive story
board is going to be the media metaphor of choice." Michael Schrage,
"Computers Shift Culture to Images," The Milwaukee Journal, 7 January 1990, p.
5J.

17. See my book, The Gift of Art: The Place of
the Arts in Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983) and my
upcoming book on art for the Turning Point Christian Worldview Series.

Dr. Gene Edward Veith is Dean of Arts and
Sciences at Concordia University, Mequon, Wisconsin.. A member of the Council
of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Dr. Veith is also the author of
Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), and a contributor to Here We Stand!: A Call
from Confessing Evangelicals (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996).

Preface
from Reading Between the Lines by Dr. Gene Edward Veith, copyright
1990.Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers,
Wheaton, IL 60187.Copies can be purchased for a total of $15 by calling the
Issues, Etc. resource line at 1-800-737-0172.

Bible
References

Acts 8: 30, 3130
Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet.
"Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. 31 "How can I,"
he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up
and sit with him.

Hebrews 12: 2 Looking
unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 11: 3
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that
what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

John 1: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.

Jeremiah 50:
38 A drought on her waters! They will dry up. For it is a land of
idols, idols that will go mad with terror.